It's All Over but the 'Crying'

It's a crying shame. Andre Rison stepped out of bounds before his great catch from Bobby McAlister in the Rose Bowl. The one doing all the crying is Mal Florence.

Florence told us the sordid details two days after the game in a Page 2 story. He even admitted that it was inconclusive whether or not Rison was bumped out before the catch. Why didn't he mention the USC fumble that was clearly miscalled on Kevin McLean's fake field goal attempt? That set up USC's tying touchdown with a great catch by Ken Henry in the back of the end zone.

The best guess is that, after all the years of USC scoring touchdowns without the football, and winning games on bad calls, he just came to expect that a fumble by his Trojans would not be called.

I don't know what Florence looks like, but I have always imagined his hairy legs sticking out of a red and gold-trimmed white miniskirt, shaking a pompon in each hand, running up and down the halls of The Los Angeles Times while "crying" out the USC fight song.